Ooh dumps Emily’s Voice billboard

We are disappointed Ooh Media has buckled to pressure, removing the Emily’s Voice heart billboard from the Pacific Highway in Belmont NSW.

In the next few days we will be asking you to sign and circulate a petition against the unjust attacks on our beautiful media campaigns. Please keep an eye out for it and be our ambassadors – ambassadors for women and children. It’s time we raised our voice on behalf of “Emily” and her mum!

Ooh told the Daily Mail the billboard had been reviewed before posting and did not contravene its guidelines, but after public complaints and media attention, decided the message, “A heart beats at four weeks” alongside the image of a woman making a heart over her pregnant belly, “could cause offence to a significant section of the community” and did contravene its guidelines.

We still don’t understand what’s so offensive about the scientifically accurate statement that an unborn baby has a heartbeat 22 days from conception. There’s no mention of abortion, no gruesome images or condemnation of any kind.

Abortion is such a protected and revered procedure, that any attempt to open discussion in a sensitive and creative manner, or provide information to encourage women to continue an unplanned pregnancy is met with swift and ferocious opposition.

The abortion zealots do not care about high-profile women coerced into abortion such as Miss X and Jaya Taki, or the many others who regret their abortions, felt they were pressured into the procedure by doctors, abortion providers and culture, such as Madeleine and Stacey.

Is their greatest fear a woman may question whether her abortion was an informed choice, or that women may continue an unexpected pregnancy and experience unexpected joy?

They simply ignore the dozens of stories on notbornyet.com and in books about abortion coercion and medical eugenics such as Defiant Birth and Giving Sorrow Words by Australian author and women’s advocate Melinda Tankard Reist.

Instead they rush to send off an email to a sympathetic journalist, post to Facebook and start an online petition.

Let’s be clear.

Ooh has made a commercial decision, not a logical or moral one. The company is reacting to increasing pressure for a self-regulated industry to come under Government oversight. It’s better to sacrifice Emily’s Voice than risk a committee banning McDonald’s, KFC or Lazy Yak.

The same ad appeared without incident a few years ago on another Ooh site, about 200m south of the offending billboard.

The heart campaign is one of several to have run in the past five years on Ooh billboards in Newcastle, as well as sites administered by other outdoor providers in Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia.

Heartbeat bus advertising

The heart ad previously has been removed from government buses in Newcastle on the order of NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance who described the image as “appalling”.

The Minister is “investigating” how our ads made it on to buses, but remains silent on truly abhorrent messages on hire vehicles.

He is appalled by our message yet didn’t intervene to ban recent bus ads for a Newcastle pregnancy support centre, or ads telling women not to drink while pregnant. What’s the difference?

Neither the ads nor our websites are condemning of women who may have chosen abortion. We have given grants to pregnancy support centres in regions where we advertise who offer free, non-directive counselling and practical support.

We are fiercely pro-women and for-children.

We are concerned at the vast numbers of abortions (70,000 p.a), and fear women are being rushed, coerced and misinformed into choosing an irreversible procedure with long term consequences.

Governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on research and media campaigns to reduce deaths from these causes, but refuse to take action to reduce abortion.

Instead, Governments have made the procedure more accessible by allowing abortion on-demand: any women, of any age, for any reason. This places vulnerable women at risk from parents, partners and pimps who want to dispose of unwanted children.

Our goal is to make abortion uncommon by helping Australians fall in love with the unborn, and encouraging and supporting women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.

We should be able to represent vulnerable women and unborn children in a sensitive and respectful manner without falling victim to political correctness and confected outrage.

Help us keep going!

Despite the opposition, we are committed to changing the culture of life in Australia. And to do that, we need your continued support. Please give generously so we can reach more people.